Chapter Text
Lily Potter had been far too clever for her own good. Jane and Remus had waited until Jazlyn and Harry had returned to Hogwarts to get started on sweeping through the items they had collected from Godric’s Hollow. They worked through the pile every evening since the kids returned. Thanks to Jane’s training from when she was younger and in charm school she was able to tell which objects were ordinary and which ones carried complex magical properties that hadn’t been there otherwise.
Yet it was still difficult to discern exactly to what capacity these magical artifacts were charmed. Most curious to her was the handkerchief Lily had left her by specifically stating it in her will. It was odd, seeing as the Handkerchief had once belonged to Jane before she gave it to Lily in their first year.
But back then, it didn’t have any sort of magical properties. And now it appeared to be practically soaked in spells, charms, jinxes, and who knows what else.
She turned it over in her hands before flinging it at Remus’s head as he shifted through the pile of trinkets they had collected the Potter’s cottage.
“Oi! What on earth was that for?” Remus said and pulled it off the top of his head where it had landed. “I’m doing the best I can. I didn’t think they’d have this much stuff and I highly doubt it’s all important. Like this stupid snitch James was always messing with.”
He held it eye level and glared at it. Snitches had been a nuisance to him at school and even after whenever the marauders got together with James still always having one to fiddle with.
“Don’t you dare release that. I’m not anywhere near good enough to catch a snitch,” she said. She paused for a moment then sat up abruptly from her place on one of her office couches and eyed the snitch. “Wait, they remember touch, right? Sometimes they open, don’t they? People can hide things in them.”
Remus and Jane quickly glanced at each other. Remus turned it over in his hands again, scanning it more carefully but nothing happened. He passed it to Jane who did the same, but again nothing happened.
“That was anticlimactic,” Remus huffed and plopped back against an armchair.
Jane groaned and carelessly tossed the snitch into their pile of dead ends.
“Anyways, that handkerchief, I gave it to Lily.” Jane said, pointing to where Remus had left it on his knee.
“Ah yes the one that I was assaulted with,” Remus said. He held it up with two figures and shook it.
“I don’t know why anyone ever thinks that you're not the dramatic one,” Jane glared.
“It’s because James and Sirius were overdramatic.” Remus replied.
“Right, ” Jane said with a roll of her eyes, “Well as I was saying, I gave that handkerchief to Lily, it’s just an ordinary handkerchief, but now I feel like there’s something more to it? Or am I just overthinking it?”
“You overthink everything,” Remus muttered but still he examined the small square of cloth while dodging one of James’s old quidditch medals that Jane had lobbed at his head. (She was clearly very testy today) “Are you sure it wasn’t an eternally spotless handkerchief?”
“No?” She questioned trying to think back. “I suppose that could be it, but I was 11 I can’t remember much about it other than I gave Lily mine and she gave me hers.”
Remus looked at her curiously.
Why trade handkerchiefs when they could each use their own?
“We both had a rough first day,” Jane sighed with a small smile as she thought back to meeting Lily for the first time, who had been upset on the first train ride, and to later that evening when Jane had been upset about her parents not seeing her off and sending her with James, his parents, and nothing else but a letter of well wishes.
Jane looked over to a framed handkerchief she had on display in her home office. It was different from the one in Remus’s hands, the one that she had given Lily had her initials been monogrammed neatly, JMLFP (Jane Morgana Le Fay Potter), and was made of the finest silks. While the one Lily had given her and was now hanging in memoriam, had been embroidered with lilies hand stitched by Mrs. Evans and made of linen.
Remus followed her gaze, he had noticed it before, of course, but had not bothered to think much about it. He shook the one in his hand again, that had once belonged to Jane and was given by her to Lily. It was indeed completely clean, not a speck of dust to be seen despite being unused for the last 11 or so years so the eternally spotless spell clearly hadn’t faded. He pointed to the one that sat on the self, silently asking permission, and Jane nodded. He crossed the room and pulled it down. Gently he pulled it out of the frame and carefully examined it.
He laid it flat on Jane's desk and placed the one they retrieved from Godric's hollow on top, lining the corners up. Jane came up next to him and peered around him. When nothing happened he held it up to a candle light. Again nothing happened.
“That’s disappointing, again,” Jane sighed. “This is going nowhere.”
“No, I think we’re on the right track,” He set it back down and pulled out his wand and started muttering a series of spells while Jane watched silently. “If they were to leave behind clues about a secret keeper switch they would have done it in a way that none of the marauders could figure out, not Sirius, not Peter, not me, and possibly not even James himself. Which would mean that they would have had to use something that would have meaning to only you and Lily. I would’ve completely passed over the handkerchief, plus Lily’s or well I guess yours, definitely still has traces of extensive charms on it, aside from the eternally spotless charm.”
“Do you think you can break past them?” Jane asked.
“Lily and James likely made it so that only you could get past it,” Remus pointed out.
“I know,” Jane said. “But you're better at curse breaking and Defense Against the Dark Arts than I am.”
“I suppose I could strip it down, see what spells Lily might have placed on it. But you’ll still likely have to do the curse breaking.” He replied.
“That'll be fine, easier for me to break if I know what I’m breaking,” Jane nodded in agreement.
Their routine continued like this. In the evenings they would convene in Jane’s office to compare findings. Thanks to Jane’s new position she had been able to interview suspected and free death eaters. Many were tight lipped and denied ever having worked with the dark lord. And the ones who weren’t were told that any spies identity was kept secret. But they never saw or heard Black among their ranks but were constantly battling him.
One night in early April the fireplace flared to life and Bill Weasley’s face appeared out of its flames.
“Evening Jane, Remus,” the young man greeted them.
They knelt down by the fireplace and greeted him in return.
“I did some digging but perhaps it would be better if I stepped through?” Bill said.
They sat on the couches in Jane’s office after Bill had come through the floo and a house elf had brought Bill some fresh tea. Bill examined the odd pile of objects with mild interest but didn’t ask questions.
“I thought you’d have gone back to Egypt by now?” Jane said.
“I-uh,” Bill said. “I’ve been making excuses to come back every now and then since I hadn’t figured it all out yet.”
“Bill!” Jane scolded, “You shouldn’t have! This isn’t something you should involve yourself with—“
“With all due respect, Mrs. Jane, you and Sara may not have told me anything about what this is for but I have my suspicions and I think it’s important.” He interrupted, “Besides, anyone who could pull something like this off under the Goblin’s noses is dangerous. They’re very territorial about their dealings with humans.”
“Alright, so what did you find out?” Remus asked before Jane could continue telling him off.
“Well they covered their tracks well. There’s a liaison in charge of the transferring of documents between the bank and the ministry. This Liaison ended up being under the imperius curse and obliviated. When I asked them about it they told me they weren’t the one who had filed Potter’s Will. Even though they were scheduled that day and signed off on it. And don’t worry, I made sure they wouldn’t suspect anything. But I had to mess around with their memory without them noticing, which took a while.”
“A common claim of the time,” Remus muttered. Both he and Jane remembered the endless trails following Voldemort’s disappearance where many claimed to be under the influence of the imperious curse. And many had gotten away with it despite both of them having known otherwise that these people were under no such influence. Remus thought that this was perhaps what caused Jane to be so outraged by her husband’s imprisonment. But it is also this that has allowed Jane to question many death eaters even if It has so far led them to a dead end.
“Yes and practically impossible to prove whether they are lying or not,” Bill said. “But the thing is, unless instructed not too while under the curse, most people remember what they do while being controlled.”
“So then were you able to find who did it?” Remus asked.
“Yes but it led to a chain of various people being under the imperius curse.” Bill said.
“A common strategy death eaters used to avoid getting caught,” Jane recalled and Bill nodded.
“It’s hard to follow the chain. As you know magic leaves behind a trace, but the monitoring of it is lifted at 17,” Bill started to explain after taking a quick sip of his tea. “However, it’s usually difficult to pinpoint who does the magic but each person has their own magical signature, like a thumbprint. But this spell was done 10 almost 11 years ago at this point making it almost impossible to trace.”
“So you don’t know who's at the end of the line then?” Remus said. Jane groaned and leaned her head against her hand that she rested on the arm of the couch.
“I do, actually, he tried to cover his tracks with the memory spells but that’s actually what gave him a way. Unforgivable curses are near impossible to find the magical signatures of. But messing with the mind, well, that's much easier, because essentially and subconsciously you have to replace a memory with that of your own choosing,” Bill said.
“And memories are unique to the individual,” Jane said slowly.
“Exactly,” Bill said and nodded at her. “It's all about perspective. How one person views the world is different from someone else.”
“Ok so then who is it?” Remus asked Waving his hand in an “on-with-it” sort of motion.
Bill gave them a slight shrug. “I don’t really know him but he’s some American aristocrat, a guy named Argo Pyrites.”
He said it like a question and glanced between Jane and Remus to see if either of them recognized the name.
Remus looked confused, he’d never heard the name before. However, it was clear that Jane did as he was concerned that she had stopped breathing entirely and a hand sharply flung out and hit Remus’s knee.
“I take it that you know him then,” Bill said hesitantly. He crossed his hands resting his arms on his knees and leaned forward curiously.
“He was a family friend, very close to my mother. I stayed with them the summer when my mother became sick during a visit to America my second year.” She muttered.
Remus and Bill stared at her and glanced at each other. She paced and bit her lip for a moment before rummaging around her office, shifting through moving books on shelves, opening drawers, pulling out boxes and loose leaflets of paper. On her desk she laid out each item. The boxes held letters, and so were the loose papers as well as memos. She also opened a dusty old photo album she’d pulled from the shelves.
Remus remembered that fateful trip, the quickly scribbled barely legible letter he’d received from James their first summer after knowing each other saying that he wouldn’t be responding to any letters soon due to having to rush to America for a family emergency, they hadn’t even known it concerned Jane until the start of the new school year. He picked up the album and looked at the picture on the open page. Jane, who looked how he remembered her to be at that time, stood in the middle, straight faced and hair partially and very neatly pulled back with a ribbon. (In much the same way she now does Avalon’s hair.) Her mother stood next to her looking especially pale. The woman’s face was emotionless as she pressed a hand on Jane’s shoulder in a move that caused Jane to straighten up and put her chin up higher.
But on her other side was an old man with fading brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail and white gloves and a fine dandy looking suit robe. He wrapped an arm around Jane’s shoulder and she turned to look up at him and he knelt to whisper something to her that Jane had long since forgotten but caused the picture version of her to give the man a fond smile.
“This him?” Jane asked tersely.
“Yeah, yeah that’s the guy,” Bill said. looking over Remus’s shoulder at the photo.
Jane fell back on the chair behind her desk and put her head in her hands and rubbed her face.
“I’m sorry,” Bill said awkwardly. He hated to have been the bearing of news of yet another betrayal to her.
“No, Bill, you’ve been a great help actually, thank you,” Jane said sincerely. And though the disappointment was clear in her voice, her composure was nothing but neutral. “But I need you to listen carefully. Pyrites isn’t someone to mess with. He’s an accomplished wizard and one with a lot of power. You cannot interfere any more. Return to Egypt tonight. Make sure you’ve covered your tracks well. Forget about all of this, do not tell the goblins what you have discovered. Do you understand?”
The young man gave a quick nod and began gathering his cloak and things. She reached into her drawer and pulled out a small bag. She tried to hand it to Bill. He pushed the bag of money away.
“I can’t accept this,” Bill said. “I just wanted to help.”
“At least as compensation for the time you’ve spent away from your job on this.” Jane said. “If you don’t take it I’ll have it transferred into your account anyways.”
Bill sighed and begrudgingly accepted the bag and thanked her. He stepped to the fireplace and grabbed the floo powder but paused and turned back.
“For what it’s worth, I think it isn’t right that Sirius Black didn’t get a trial, whether or not he’s guilty, and I hope you get your answers,” he said. He gave her a wink and in a rush a flamed he was gone.
“I am so confused,” Remus said a few minutes after Bill had left. He had yet move from where he stood at the foot of the desk.
Jane had taken a second to mull over their discovery and before abruptly rummaging through her drawers for a spare bit of parchment and a quill and had immediately began writing.
“Who is this guy, and what does he have to do with Sirius and Peter?” Remus said. He flipped through pictures and couldn’t find himself having any recollection of him. Though him being an American and an elite member of society made sense for that. But having grown close to Jane in the last few years, he would’ve thought that he would have met someone of such clear importance to Jane or had at least heard of them.
“I’m not sure, to be honest, about that last bit, but I intend to find out,” she answered without looking up. But there was a hint of sadness and bitter betrayal and defeat in her voice. something he had unfortunately grown accustomed to hearing. “I’ve known him for years, or I thought I did. Not only was he an adviser to my mother but he is a huge investor for Gringotts, very influential. Which would make a lot of sense given that he managed to get into the Wills. But the last time I saw him was at my wedding.”
Remus remembered her wedding, and while weddings were typically memorable this one had been unfortunately more so. They both grimaced as they thought back to what was supposed to be a beautiful evening but had ended in a death eater attack.
“Your wedding was when we confirmed there was a spy,” Remus recalled. “We thought they were the one who told death eaters about it. But could it have been this Pyrites?”
“No,” Jane said surprisingly confidently despite what she had just been told about the man, “he wouldn’t just be working for Voldemort and be one of his lackey’s. Ruining my wedding would be considered barbaric and he was my mother’s friend so if anything he was there for her.”
“He deals under the table,” Remus said. He had been friends long enough with rich high society people like Jane, and even Sirius and James, to see or hear about stories like this. Many members of the most pure blooded families agreed with Voldemort, but they also didn’t believe in his methods. At the same time they’d offer support in other ways, some offering their children up as death eaters, house elves for dirty work, providing power or resources at the top of the chain. They’d kill sometimes too, but only if they felt the target was worthy of it and if they were the only ones with access to them.
“Precisely.” Jane said. “I was thinking of taking a trip to America with the kids this summer. Could use a hand, what do you think?”
Remus gave her an unimpressed look. “Is that wise to bring the children into this?”
“He won’t harm them.” She only looked more determined. Which meant her mind was already made and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. And he knew she wouldn’t put them in danger.
And so it appeared that they had a lot of work to do. With Remus still trying to break through Lily’s impressive enchantments and Jane now organizing an international visit. But for once Jane felt almost certain that these two leads were the first that could actually lead to something (what she wasn’t exactly sure yet) the ministry could accept. At least enough to get him a trial.